The latest challenge at Kristof Farms

Warm wishes from the tree-covered hills of Kristof Farms!

Hello Friends,

We thought we’d share some news about our Reserve Cider, which we’re very proud of. But first, we interrupt this for a report from our apple orchard.

In the orchard, most of our trees are looking hale and hearty. We did lose some trees over the winter, but generally they are doing well and bearing plenty of fruit, so we expect a solid harvest this fall, around September and October. We could use a good rain. The heat wave hasn’t been as bad in the Pacific Northwest as in some parts of the country, but after a very wet spring we’ve had a parched summer. We’re doing rain dances in Yamhill!

Friends who come to the farm sometimes are puzzled by wooden slats in our apple trees holding the branches out. That’s because some of our young trees want to grow straight up, like poplars, but we’ve planted them 18 feet apart and we want them to grow out as well as up. So the wooden slats are training the branches to go out and not just up.

That leads to another question we haven’t quite decided: Should we let the trees go up, up and away? Should we prune them so they don’t get too tall, or let them grow up into the sky? If we handpick the fruit, it doesn’t work to let them get too tall, for who’s going to get an apple 25 feet up high? But if we end up harvesting in a few years by shaking the trees (as we used to with our cherry trees in the decades we raised cherries), then it doesn’t matter how tall they get. We’re still working that out.

The rodents – voles, gophers and ground squirrels – seem under control this year. We’d like to credit our Chief Security Officer, Connie the dog, but we think it’s more likely to be hawks and owls that are helping. We put out nesting boxes for raptors a few years ago, and while they were unimpressed by our housing offerings they are all over the farm. We don’t have a good photo of a hawk pouncing on a gopher, but isn’t this a cute photo of a bear on our property scratching himself? We like bears when they’re just scratching themselves, not eating our apples and grapes, or tearing apart our fences.

And now, a bit about our Reserve Cider. Making it starts with about a dozen varieties of heirloom cider apples whose names you may not be familiar with: Kingston Black, Yarlington Mill, Vilberie and many more. Many commercial ciders use juice from grocery store sweet apples because they are much cheaper, but the best ciders rely on these special cider varieties with tannins, acidity and rich flavor.

Those dozen varieties go into our field blend Orchard Cider, and then to get our Reserve Cider, we further age the Orchard cider in oak barrels. Finally we add a dash of Bauman’s Ice Cider, and the result is slightly sweeter than our dry Orchard Cider. With subtle notes of baked apple, clove and cherry, it is a semi-dry cider.

Our Reserve Cider won a gold medal last year at GLINTCAP, the world’s largest international cider competition, and followed that up with prizes this year from Cidercraft Magazine and Second Place at the Northwest Cider Cup. But we can’t claim credit for this: The credit goes to our apple trees and to our cider maker, Christine Walter, one of America’s foremost cider experts and the founder of Bauman’s Cider. Christine has been a remarkable mentor as we’ve built up our cider business.

You can order our Reserve Cider – or our Orchard Cider or our Noir co-ferment with Pinot Noir grape-skins, or all three – at KristofFarms.com.

2022 3-Pack

We send our best to all of you. We’ve heard from some of you that you’ve enjoyed our new 2022-harvest ciders, which we just launched in June this year. After selling out of the 2021 ciders we’re delighted to have all our ciders in stock again. Save money on shipping by ordering a case. Lots of love from Kristof Farms!

—Jane, Nick, Sheryl, Gregory, Geoffrey, Caroline, Adam – and Connie, our four-legged Chief Security Officer.

$75.00 for 3-pack

Shop

Reply to this email with any questions. We hope you enjoy!! <3